The most complete information about small dog breeds

Dangerous dogs: what can be done about it?

Some months ago a teenager of only 14 years old was attacked by 5 dogs and killed in the act. Experts started to think about this fact and expressed their thoughts about dangerous dogs.

Aggressive behaviour of a dog

We should always have in mind that despite nowadays dogs are family pets they can occasionally be aggressive and display a problematic behavior. It is not the first time that a story about a dog attacking a kid or other animals has come up, some of them fatal some less serious but still this has to stop. As mentioned in lots of articles the dogs behavior is most of the time generated by its owners, if they provided appropriate early training and experiences when puppies so that they grow up to be friendly dogs.

So the first problem is the training owners give to their dogs. Reports reveal that almost one in three dog owners have been bitten or attacked by a dog. Lack of understanding by owners about early stage trainings has caused most behavioral issues resulting in dangerous dogs at old ages.

Socialization is the most important thing to expose your puppy to, these events can and surely will prevent your dog from becoming an aggressive anti-social dangerous dog.

Are dogs capable of having a friendship with humans?

Guide dogs puppies

The great majority of guide dog owners have stories about how their dogs know when they are sad, or about to get home and sense a lot of things that sometimes it may sound strange to think about a dog. The reality is that dogs are more capable of feeling than humans could ever imagine.

For blind men, guide dogs are like their eyes, they share a unique bond everyday. With every walk in the park. Nowadays you can see how dogs are helping or assisting people who have disabilities or illnesses, it is very encouraging and inspiring from my point of view.

Would you trust a dog with your life? Well, certainly a lot of people do. For example there is a story about a girl who has diabetes and every time she is going to have a diabetic hypo the dog let his mother know in advance so she can act quick enough avoiding reaching to dangerous levels. How can these skills be true? The truth is we do not know, it is impressive but yet a mystery to be solved. This was just an example, diabetes is not the only condition dogs can handle.

If this did not impress you, then maybe that now humans are trying to train dogs to detect a very serious condition in humans… cancer. Yet this idea is very new and not implemented yet.

Breakfast and effectiveness

In principle, appears unrelated to have fed the dog to improve the ability to find hidden food as opposed to those dogs that were not fed previously.

Based on studies showing that children have better cognitive performance if they have eaten breakfast, two researchers sought to verify the behavior of dogs to determine if the same behavior occurred.

where is my breakfast

Research by Dr. Holly Miller and his colleague Charlotte Bender was published in the journal Behavioural Processes, which analyzes this issue.
Thus trained domestic dogs were used to search for a particular food hidden in a container part of a group of six containers.

Part of the dogs were fed 30 minutes before the test while other dogs were not fed at all.
To level the energy state, dogs previously had to go through an exercise of self-control “sit and stay” according to the BBC reporting.
The test was successful proving that those dogs that had eaten his breakfast 30 minutes before the test, were more effective at finding the hidden food.

This fact can be applied and observed when you need to complete a particular task with your dog, by having this proved behavior in mind.
In case you are interested in deeper detail on the subject, check out the BBC article and other related items you’ll find there.

Chocolate and dogs

We have seen various articles here at The Small Dog Breeds, in the need to provide adequate food to our pets and taking special care when they are puppies.

To do this there are in balanced meals the market , reliable brands with which we feed.

But we also know that in many cases the owners try to “reward” their pet with a meal that mostly liked to the owner. Nothing worse than this, and worse if we are on Easter and we are tempted to “invite” our dog with tasty easter eggs, that tradition imposes on these dates.

chocolate easter eggs

Well, no idea could be more harmful to our dog, since many people do not know that chocolate contains a component that is toxic, that means they are allergic, and can lead the dog to death.
In many cases you will not feed them this way, but if we neglect the place where we keep these Easter eggs, you run the risk that your dog will be tempted to eat one with the terrible consequences this may have.
The effects produced by this component of chocolate usually appears within hours of eating.
Let us keep this in mind.
A true story on this topic can be found in the following article from the BBC

Sniffer dogs have been around for many years now…

As you know dogs have always been trained and used by the police to search and find for drugs and explosives, generally en places like airports. These days the use of dogs to achieve this task is being discussed.

Since the dogs have a very sensitive sense of smell, they were often used to detect decomposing bodies to illegal drugs, such smells that sometimes can’t be sensed by human.

Dogs are vital for these things, they can detect up to 10 different substances. Scientists think that dogs may not be the best for this kind of job, since like humans they need resting, they get bored, and maybe it’s better to find a way to do this substance recognition with some other tool. Grattan’s team is working on a robot with an artificial sense of smell that could replace sniffer dogs from that kind of work.

Besides of the dog, every sniffer has to have a person by its side handling him, so that’s an extra cost of one person besides the dog. So if this can be automatized it would be a great advantage, because you could run the robot 24 hours a day and it wouldn’t get tired.

The small dog breeds

10 tests to pass

In our previous publication we saw the foundations of this competitions of agility that both public and participants attract.

This type of competition began just over 40 years, which is not much time for the current popularity.

As we saw in the previous publication, this requires a very intensive traininggiven the difficulty of the obstacles and the time that must be met.
For this reason it is advisable not to begin training our dog before one year of age to not interfere with the normal growth, since some tests to be performed require significant effort.

The organizers set different circuits so that the skill required can not be practiced in the past, and therefore understanding between dog / trainer is very important and basic for the win.

jumping – image from dorotte.blog.cz

Each organization establishes the importance of each failure, but can be summarized in the following faults

On obstacles that require a jump, the displacement of the pannel or bar

For weave pole, to enter incorrectly or skipping poles or going back to correct a failure

There is a time established to complete the course, exceding this time is a fault

There are obstacles containing a contact zone, the failing of touching that zone is the fault

When obstacles are numbered in a sequence, this sequece order must be honored.

Refusal when approaching an obstacle

Runout of the corresponding obstacle

The coach (usually called the handler) touches an obstable or the dog

Trying to repeat an obstacle, the dog must successfully pass the obstacle in just one try

Behaviors out of planned, both for the handler and the dog.

If you want to go in deep with Agility you can read this Wikipediaarticle.

Exercise for you and your dog

One of the most enjoyable activities and increasingly with followers and participants are agiliy competitions.
This is an activity that has spread to many countries and has hundreds of competences annually.
One factor that has made these competitions so famous is that the dog should not be bred, it is enough to have good training to meet the requirements of the circuit.

Maderplay company jump obstacle

Let’s see what this competition is based

The basics

It establishes a circuit composed of a series of obstacles to jump, run into them, running over them etc. trying to do it in the shortest time possible and making the fewest mistakes.
But the most fun and challenging at the same time is that the dog performs the activities off leash, and the owner or trainer can not touch the dog or the obstacles. This means that he/she should guide the dog with only voice or gestures, which makes it difficult.

Moreover, the circuit is not previously known to the dog, the owner can only traverse once previously and plan how he/she will lead the dog to meet the requirements.

Consider also that the dog runs much faster than the owner, so it is important to optimize the position of the coach to point out the direction and task to perform, without loss of time.

Of course in these competitions dogs were grouped according to their size, normally in three categories. This allows dogs compete within their possibilities and obstacles that are appropriate to their height.

In our next article we will see in detail the type of obstacles that normally have these circuits and require much training.

Some characteristics of Schipperke breed

Schipperke puppy

The Schipperke has relatively small,pointed ears that are erect top the head. These breed has a double coat, with a soft fluffly undercoat. The external coat feels a bit harsh and is longer than the undercoat. The tail of the Schipperke is always down towards the rear of the dog.

The average weight of these dogs is usually between 3 to 9 kg ( 7 to 20 lb). Puppies have this unique feature that differences them, and it is that they are born with tails in different lengths.

Schipperke puppy

A few characteristics of the Schipperke’s behavior are for example, they are a bit stubborn and known for being so. Mischievous and headstrong temperamental. They love to chase smallanimals so it’s not a good idea if you own a bunny or some other small animal. Common nicknames for the Schipperke are “Little black fox” or “Tasmanian black devil” or “ “little black devil.” They are very curious dogs and with high energy levels. Because of their energy levels they require a lot of daily exercise and a big space so they can run and have fun. They are very smart and independent and sometimes they rather do whatever they want than listening to its owner’s order. The Schipperke requiere training starting when they are puppies, they can be aggressive with other dogs so be careful

Hypoallergenic Breeds?

Are you looking for a dog that will not cause allergies? myths and facts to consider.

First Let’s consider some facts that cause allergy and why. An allergen is any substance that by being ingested or inhaled, cause a reaction of the immune system, this is causing an allergic reaction.

hair and dander

With this in mind we ask in relation to dogs, which is what can cause allergy. Mainly we found hair loss and dandruff.
Thus, these features are the first that we consider when looking for a specific breed. But not everyone reacts the same so you can not make rules ensuring that a dog will cause allergies or not.

Even hairlessdogs can not be labeled as hypoallergenic, since there is also shed dander and this in itself can cause allergy.
We must also be clear that when we say hyperallergenic this does not mean they do not cause allergic effects is minimized.
Overall we conclude that those breeds that shed less hair and dander will be most appropriate if you are allergic.
It is also interesting to read the article on the topic at Wikipedia.org

The Small Dog Breeds

A fully trained dog

We shared several articles on dog training, from the basics to the major commands. Today we want to show this video as well as being highly entertaining shows us how we can train our pet.
Once your dog understands that we want her to follow orders will be easier to incorporate new skills.

a well trainded dog

In this video we see a Jack Russel Terrier, which besides being extremely active as you will see in the film, is able to successfully meet a wide range of tasks, as will be clear that there is always a reward.
But do not pretend that all dogs are able to learn so many orders. Anyway enjoy watching the video and taking some ideas for training our dog.